La Mouche
by flanazapam
Summary: Dom Frollo's reflection of fate and the futility of man, a rather cheerful topic, methinks. This was just done on a whim, as inspiration is fleeting, fickle, and swift. This takes place when Frollo watches the spider kill the fly. Enjoy! ENGLISH


**La Mouche **

A fly, an innocent and carefree creature, enthusiastically flew towards a light. It was a light so dazzling that no insect could have hoped to resist it. The fly eagerly sped towards it in full, buzzing flight, only to be met with the snare of a spider's web. The fly, in its eagerness, could not see the transparent barrier (a window) which kept it apart from the light and which housed the large spider who had spun the web. How unfortunate for that most hopeful little fly, who was now trapped in that sticky spider web with no plausible escape in sight!

As the little fly struggled to break free (what an absurd struggle!), it spotted the web's hungry owner crawling towards it. Driven by a great panic, the fly desperately struggled to free itself from the trap, its web-bound wings buzzing loudly with every pitiful motion. Just as the spider drew nearer, a large human hand reached for the fly stuck in the web, attempting to salvage it from its demise.

Suddenly, another hand, this one cold and pale, took a steady hold of the hand which had nobly attempted to save the fly.

"Let fate take its course" the owner of the cold, pale hand snarled, observing the scene intently.

Without further interruption, the spider proceeded to devour its prisoner in a gruesome manner. Every ravenous bite it took helped put an end to the fly's pathetic struggle.

Moments later, no trace of the fly's existence remained and the satisfied spider withdrew into the shadows once more.

"Fate" whispered the owner of the cold hand, who was a priest.

The priest studied the site of the fly's destruction with quiet interest, as if it held some sort of secret.

"Foolish fly" the priest remarked. "It had hoped to escape its prison in order to reach yonder light, so that it may have perhaps known the contentment which accompanies enlightenment."

Calmly, the priest rested his cold hand upon the large window where the death had taken place.

"Do we not all embody the spirit of this foolish fly when we hope our pathetic hopes and dream our inane dreams?" the priest stated. "Children of nothing, we fly as the fly once did towards our heart's desire, towards, the allure of the light, unaware of the impossibility of its attainment. In our quest for happiness and fulfillment, however, we are faced with our own ruin, as the fly was when he faced the spider. The end of our unfulfilled existence comes swiftly and savagely. We wretchedly dare to think 'had I only flown a little further, I would have found my life's content, I would have found the peace to please my pining heart, or the knowledge to expand my mind beyond its natural boundaries.'

The priest looked at the captivating light still shining in the distance, its brilliance reflecting from his coal-black eyes.

"Foolish thoughts befitting foolish creatures" the priest concluded. "Ignorant beasts we are—even if one was to escape the spider web of life's trivialities, one would still be met with that wall of icy glass which forever separates our singular soul from the radiant glow of yonder light, of that infinite source of joy which, for all one knows, may only exist as phantasy within the mind, and not, as one believed, in attainable reality."

The priest lowered his head, no longer looking at the light.

"All men are flies when governed by their senseless hopes and dreams" the priest stated in a solemn tone. "Blinded by idealism and driven by desire, they hope to one day reach that light, that symbol of their happiness. Yet their fate is more powerful than them, for in its icy manner it has defeated them before they began their fruitless flight. They, of course, realize this too late."

"Realize what?" the owner of the merciful hand who had tried to save the fly inquired.

"They realize that a glass of cruel frigidity shall always stand between them and their happiness" the priest declared. "In the darkness of their absolute failure they realize—we realize—that it is our fate to perish within our life's prison, to die wretched and unfulfilled, encased and drowned in an infinite obscurity and consumed by ANArKH—_Fatum_—(fate), by that which overpowers us.

"What art thou saying, Dom Claude Frollo?" the priest's guest exclaimed in a vexed and utterly horrified voice.

"My utterance is nothing more than my verbal acknowledgement of man's insignificance and helplessness before the nightmarish culmination of his fate, before the conclusion of his pointless existence, and before the realization of his ultimate and inevitable failure" Dom Claude coolly stated.

~ The End~


End file.
